“Even for our hero, there were limits to the dream of assimilation, to how far any of you could make your way into the world of Black and White.” (pp. 29-30)
Willis Wu is an actor struggling against cliched roles and bit parts relegated to Asian men. He performs in a stereotypical cop show with black and white protagonists as the story begins and aspires to be the Kung Fu Guy. He works to move from the generic Asian role to a slightly better generic Asian role and eventually to the Kung Fu Guy. However, his real life becomes a set of undetermined and nonspecific roles as his acting becomes more refined. In other words, as his acting status improves, his living status declines. As a reader, it becomes difficult to tell which parts of the novel are parts of the theater and which parts are real life. Of course, this is the point of this satirical commentary about how Asians are boxed into roles and not seen as individuals in American society.
The structure of the novel is unique. Some parts are written as a play, other parts as narrative, and some delineate laws involving Asians in America. Charles Yu is an accomplished author, and the structure is worth examining as a message in addition to the story itself.
